


silhouette

by gracieminabox



Series: horizons universe [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Bisexuality, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-07 01:12:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11048196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracieminabox/pseuds/gracieminabox
Summary: A handful of moments on which the life of Philip John Boyce, M.D., M.P.H., pivots.Takes place in the same universe as, and references events depicted in, "the way our horizons meet."





	silhouette

First of July and he’s born on the hottest day of the year, sweat pooling at the small of his mother’s back as she rocks on her hands and knees. It’s one tiny increment below unbearable, an all-consuming, full-body kind of fire that hijacks her body and dominates her mind. She trusts it, though; her body has proven twice before that it knows what to do, and her third child slips into the world with a smile on his face. He settles at her breast, and his world becomes her heartbeat.

End of the autumn and he watches Mama give birth to Lily. She’s littler than she should be, a smidge too early, kind of wrinkly and red, and he’s in awe, because a whole _person_ just came out of Mama, and how’d that happen? Daddy explains it a little, in terms a four-year-old can grasp, and as he hears the story, he’s riveted by the raw power of the thing.

Halfway through first grade and he comes home from school with Teddy Kalish’s name in a heart on his reading log. “Mama,” he declares unapologetically, “I like boys too.” She ruffles his hair and says they can talk about that more when he’s a little older. He doesn't understand why an interval of years would change something.

Two in the morning and there’s crying in the room next to his because his big sister Sarah’s boyfriend hit her. His big brother Charlie wakes him up before dawn and takes him into the backyard, teaching him how to throw a hell of a right hook, and then they go to, as Charlie puts it, _dispense with the problem._ “No Boyce ever stands idly by while a woman gets hurt, Phil,” Charlie tells him gravely. “Never.” He hears, and he understands.

New Year’s morning and he sleeps with Annie Kerber, who says she loves him, and he believes it. She knows what she’s saying and he trusts her to mean it, if even for a moment. Annie is soft and curved in all the ways he is angular and stiff, and he loves women, he decides, in ways electric and vivid and uncompromising.

Friday night behind the bleachers at the homecoming game and he drops his piccolo in the dirt as he makes out with Hank Michaels like his life depends on taking in the breath Hank’s letting go. It’s awkward and fierce and too tongue-y and he loves men, he decides, in ways quiet and deep and erotic.

Summer vacation and Sarah gets pregnant, too young, scared, and desperate to keep it quiet from their parents. He drives her to the clinic, holds her hand the whole time, and until his dying day, never breathes a word. “You’re good at this,” Sarah tells him in the recovery room, and he smiles at the something soft and important that blooms around his heart.

Graduation day and Starfleet comes calling, promising adventure, ingenuity, unique experiences, a chance to help the people who need it most, and, well, he’s never been able to resist that kind of opportunity. He picks the medical track, because _you’re good at this,_ and because he knows that women’s bodies are used as weapons against them, that they are so powerful that they are often taught to be afraid of themselves. Someone needs to dispel that fear while building up that power; why not him?

Seventh of January, one row ahead and over to the left, the back of a head of curly blond hair just a smidge over regulation length and dancing on the back of his neck, and his heart feels like it's quivering in his chest. The toehead turns to face him, and suddenly the world goes _slate blue._

A week and a day of knowing him and he’s dreaming of hands full of thick blond curls, of lips soft and smart and stubborn, of stubble raking his cheek and his belly and his thigh, of solid muscle and sharp hipbones and a voice low and sweet and sinful as dark chocolate. It feels _real,_ and there’s _pain,_ and he can’t quite meet those eyes for a little while.

Seven at night and there’s a girlfriend now who gets to enjoy those curls and slate blues, and bi boys should be forbidden by law from getting crushes on straight boys, because this _burns,_ deep in his chest, in the ventricles of his heart, in a prickly sort of way that ripples along his spine and leaves him feeling small and bereft and bleeding.

After dinner and he tells a stupid joke to make his friend laugh. Little crinkles appear at the corners of his eyes, adorable and heart-rending, and he wants to taste them, almost irresistibly. No, he realizes with dread, this is definitely not just a crush that’s going to pass in its own time; this is something bigger than curly hair and dimples and slate blue eyes and laugh lines and his own brimming heart, bigger than just _them._

The end of a shitty day and he’s being held in his best friend’s arms, solid and warm, and he smells a little citrusy, like summer, like home. He knows it’s a platonic gesture of comfort, that _best friends don’t,_ but he’ll be damned if this man isn’t becoming dangerously close to his favorite reason for continuing to breathe.

Over lunch and _I may have asked her to marry me_ and he’s fine he’s fine he’s fine he’s fine he’s _fine_ (he’s not fine, not even a little bit fine; fine is but a distant memory from long before he met this man).

Divorce o’clock and his best friend is back on that damn futon, beautiful and brilliant and infuriating and right where he belongs.

Four in the afternoon and he’s too old for this shit, unable to watch this bright electric nuclear star bank himself for the umpteenth time, exhausted in ways both physical and not of watching women rip through the center of his universe like traveling black holes, destined to rip his star to shreds. There's a fight, then a miserable, drawn-out silence. There's a crisis, and he eats every one of his feelings back up, because _he needs me._

Twenty-three hundred hours and _report to the captain’s quarters_ and are the inertial dampeners malfunctioning? Because his universe definitely seems to be spinning like a top out of control, far, _far_ off its axis, and even pretending he’s okay is no longer a viable goal. He wants to say no, the very nuclei of his cells are screaming at him to run, but he doesn’t, because when the most important person in your entire world asks you to do something to make them happy, you fucking _do it._ Somehow - he'd never be able to say _how_ \- he finds his way to the quarters of the one person onboard who _knows;_ he vomits into her toilet and then sobs in her arms until he can’t see.

Six in the morning, Mexico time, and his best friend in the universe is confused and hurting and devastated and _beautiful,_ and he loves him so fiercely that he thinks it might break him, and he’s remarkably okay with that.

Late at night and he _just can’t do this anymore,_ and honestly, twenty-nine years six months nineteen days who knows how many hours is _long the fuck enough._ Those lips are even softer than he thought they’d be, warmer, and he tastes _Christopher_ on his tongue, with a hint of beer and vanilla. Thirty years of secrets, of affection and pining and resignation and devastation and hope and fear, come bubbling up out of him, like he’s a fucking dam and this overgrown manchild has been throwing rocks at him long enough to make a crack that’s now cleaved him right down the middle.

Twenty-two hundred hours, twenty-two minutes and now _he’s_ the one being kissed, sweet and open and present and alive and without any secrets between them, and nothing makes sense and everything makes sense and he loves him loves him _loves him,_ in ways profound and marrow-deep and elemental, in ways that are inseparable from the person he is at the very core of his being.

One minute later and he threads his hands into those curls, and the world becomes Chris’ heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know where this came from, but Phil showed up in my head today and demanded it be written, so here you go.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading. I look forward to your feedback.


End file.
